How an industrial supplier can start taking orders online
Most industrial suppliers already take orders every day, by phone, email and WhatsApp. Taking orders online does not mean replacing all of that. It means giving customers one more way to order, and giving your team one place to see every order.
Start with the orders you already get
Before you choose any tool, look at how orders reach you today. Write down where they arrive and what a typical order contains. This tells you what an online system has to handle.
Most suppliers find that a small number of customers send most of the orders, and that the same dozen products appear again and again. That is a good place to start.
- Where do orders arrive: phone, email, WhatsApp, a rep, walk-in?
- Which customers order most often, and what do they usually buy?
- Which orders need a quote first, and which are standard items at a standard price?
Decide what customers can do on their own
An online store can do more than show a product list. Pick the few things that save you the most time and start there.
- Find a product and see the specification, without phoning to ask.
- See whether it is in stock.
- Ask for a quote, or order straight away at a known price.
- Reorder what they bought last time.
Get your product list in order first
The online store is only as good as the product list behind it. If names are unclear or sizes are missing, customers will phone anyway. Spend your effort here before anything else.
Our guide on preparing a product catalogue for online ordering covers what each product needs.
Choose how customers will pay
Account customers usually pay on terms, so they may only need to place the order and receive an invoice. Other customers may want to pay by card or EFT when they order. You can support both.
Check where the money goes. Payments should go straight into your own account, not through a middleman who holds your funds.
Start with your best customers
Ask five or ten regular customers to try ordering online. Keep your phone and WhatsApp open while they do. Watch where they get stuck, and fix those things first.
Do not announce a big launch until the common orders work smoothly.
Measure what changes
After a month, look at a few simple numbers: how many orders came in online, how long it took to process an order, and how many orders had mistakes. If these improve, tell more customers. If not, find out why before you spend more.